ArticleNature2015
Control of REM sleep by ventral medulla GABAergic neurons.
Article in Nature, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 148 papers.
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Who cites it
148 citing papers in PubMed, 291 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Parallel cholinergic circuit in oculomotor nucleus to control eye movements and REM sleep.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Motor Cortex VIP Interneurons Participate in Dexmedetomidine-Associated Sleep Modulation.Molecular neurobiology · 2026Article
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- Hypnotic and sleep-promoting effects of Limosilactobacillus reuteri LM1063 on pentobarbital-induced sleep and electroencephalogram analysis in mice.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Lumbar spinal Shox2 interneurons receive monosynaptic excitatory input from the lateral paragigantocellular nucleus in mouse.iScience · 2026Article
- A novel theory of rapid eye movement sleep as an integral component of the seasonal timekeeping apparatus.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Whole-brain mapping of monosynaptic afferents to GABAergic neurons in the sublaterodorsal tegmental nucleus of mice.Zoological research · 2025Article
- Parvalbumin-expressing neurons in the ventral medulla are active during wakefulness and promote NREM sleep.Sleep · 2025Article
- Diverse Firing Profiles ofThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Role of Hypothalamic CRH Neurons in Regulating the Impact of Stress on Memory and Sleep.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Ethanol-induced rapid eye movement sleep suppression in rats: Comparison with subtype-selective GABAJournal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Senegenin regulates the mechanism of insomnia through the Keap1/Nrf2/PINK1/Parkin pathway mediated by GAD67.Journal of sleep research · 2025Article
- Transcriptomic and spatial GABAergic neuron subtypes in zona incerta mediate distinct innate behaviors.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The effects of diazepam on sleep depend on the photoperiod.Acta pharmacologica Sinica · 2025Article
- Chronic chemogenetic slow-wave-sleep enhancement in mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Activation of locus coeruleus noradrenergic neurons rapidly drives homeostatic sleep pressure.Science advances · 2025Article
- Neural circuits and emotional processing in rapid eye movement sleep.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Review
88 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a distinct brain state characterized by activated electroencephalogram and complete skeletal muscle paralysis, and is associated with vivid dreams. Transection studies by Jouvet first demonstrated that the brainstem is both necessary and sufficient for REM sleep generation, and the neural circuits in the pons have since been studied extensively. The medulla also contains neurons that are active during REM sleep, but whether they play a causal role in REM sleep generation remains unclear. Here we show that a GABAergic (γ-aminobutyric-acid-releasing) pathway originating from the ventral medulla powerfully promotes REM sleep in mice. Optogenetic activation of ventral medulla GABAergic neurons rapidly and reliably initiated REM sleep episodes and prolonged their durations, whereas inactivating these neurons had the opposite effects. Optrode recordings from channelrhodopsin-2-tagged ventral medulla GABAergic neurons showed that they were most active during REM sleep (REMmax), and during wakefulness they were preferentially active during eating and grooming. Furthermore, dual retrograde tracing showed that the rostral projections to the pons and midbrain and caudal projections to the spinal cord originate from separate ventral medulla neuron populations. Activating the rostral GABAergic projections was sufficient for both the induction and maintenance of REM sleep, which are probably mediated in part by inhibition of REM-suppressing GABAergic neurons in the ventrolateral periaqueductal grey. These results identify a key component of the pontomedullary network controlling REM sleep. The capability to induce REM sleep on command may offer a powerful tool for investigating its functions.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.